do people ever do anything that is less beneficial than an alternative?
If the system is railroading you, the judge looks like another member of the system.
If you did it but believe that a jury will decide the law is unjust then you may go for jury nullification. A judge is not going to give you that.
In the U.S you might want to push as far as you can before accepting a plea, based on the idea that the prosecutor will offer better terms the closer it comes to trial. Under these conditions jury trials are more expensive, take longer, and may offer more uncertainty. Therefore ask for jury trial if your strategy is to get improved terms for plea.
In other words, there are reasons why jury trials would be better. There are reasons why people might think that jury trials would be better. However if your thing is about realizing the evidence is a bunch of crap and the charge is something that might emotionally cause people to want to see someone suffer you might want to take a bench trial, because hopefully judges should be able to see through crap evidence.
because they think jury trials work the way they are supposed to work.
the system is broken because juries are not required (or even allowed) to explain their decision, and the selection process is not that good at removing bias. thats how you get cases where the jury is racist or not following the law.
but the idea of using a group decision instead of individual is great, and the jurors not being judges/lawyers avoids professional deformation. if selection was completely fair the system would work as intended but thats not really possible with the way it is now.
> selection process is not that good at removing bias
I'd say it introduces bias.
Here in Blighty, jury selection is *entirely* random. A juror is only going to be 'deselected' in extremis; for example, it turns out they are related to the prosecution or defendant.
If the system is railroading you, the judge looks like another member of the system.
If you did it but believe that a jury will decide the law is unjust then you may go for jury nullification. A judge is not going to give you that.
In the U.S you might want to push as far as you can before accepting a plea, based on the idea that the prosecutor will offer better terms the closer it comes to trial. Under these conditions jury trials are more expensive, take longer, and may offer more uncertainty. Therefore ask for jury trial if your strategy is to get improved terms for plea.
In other words, there are reasons why jury trials would be better. There are reasons why people might think that jury trials would be better. However if your thing is about realizing the evidence is a bunch of crap and the charge is something that might emotionally cause people to want to see someone suffer you might want to take a bench trial, because hopefully judges should be able to see through crap evidence.